tomorrow (we'll smile again)
by fiesa
Summary: Somehow, it feels like this is the end. (The taste of the alcohol is bitter on her tongue.) OneShot- Post-ep to S03Ep13 The Parting Shot. (Introspection. Bobbi, Hunter, Team)


**tomorrow, we'll smile again**

 _Summary: Somehow, it feels like this is the end. (The taste of the alcohol is bitter on her tongue.) OneShot- Post-ep to S03Ep13 The Parting Shot. (Bobbi, Hunter, Team)_

 _Warning: … is there any more to say?_

 _Set: Post-ep to S03Ep13._

 _Disclaimer: Standards apply._

 _A/N: Them leaving hit me out of the blue. And hard. *cries in a corner*_

* * *

It feels empty.

She never wasted thoughts on things like this before but suddenly, it seems to have become a place of memories. Of the wrong kind of memories, too. One should think the training room would hold memories of exhaustion and elation, surrender and victory: all the hours she has sweated in it, has hit the mat more often than she can count only to get up and try again. Endless repetitions of street-fighting techniques, of various self-defense styles, of a myriad different SHIELD agent-y things and not-so-SHIELD-agent-y things. In this room, Ward has betrayed her. In this room, May has trained her. In this room, Lincoln has kissed her.

And still: when Daisy looks at the empty place now, she sees only Bobbi and Hunter.

Bobbi, her hair in a tight braid, driving her fists into the punching bag with grim determination. Bobbi, laughing as May sweeps Hunter's feet from under him for the umpteenth time while he complains incessantly. Bobbi, looking at her with an expression that holds both defiance, apology and no apology: because she always does what she thinks is right, and what she believes in. And Hunter: with his stupid British accent and his tasteless jokes, his never-ending horror stories about his monster ex-wife. Hunter, who looks at said ex-wife like she is the most precious thing in the world. Hunter, who is like a bulldog – once something is in his fangs, he doesn't let go, and it has saved Daisy and the team countless times. Bobbi again, looking down at her, both of them with Hunter's frantic calls for backup in their ears and Mac's shaking arms supporting Daisy's equally trembling form, but the resolve is clear in his voice:

"Go!"

Bobbi: smiling at her from the table in the back of the bar, partly obscured by the other patrons. Hunter lifts the shot glass, toasting silently.

 _They never broke. Not even to save each other._

The room is full of tiny shards of memories, each one a jagged edge in her mind; a stab to her heart.

 _She knows the training room is occupied. She knows Bobbi likes to do her daily workout at this time of the day, and that Hunter sometimes, miraculously, can be found there at the same time. So she fully expects them to be there, going at each other with the usual fervor that somehow has begun lacking acid for the past weeks and has become something… else._

 _Daisy does not expect Bobbi sitting on the ground, her arms wrapped around herself and her face buried on her knees, her shoulders shaking. She does not expect Hunter's arms to be wrapped around her. She does not expect the heartbreaking silence._

 _She does not stay to ask._

Memories, memories everywhere, and the same realization that hurts deep down in her guts, pounding through her veins and swelling in her throat, suffocating her.

Daisy hits the closing automatism for the door with more force than necessary and wants to scream at it because it shuts quietly, with only a soft hiss of the hydraulics. She pounds her fist against the wall instead, three times, four times, screaming in her head only because she cannot alert anyone, cannot make anyone notice her here and now. And it hurts, it is cold pain shooting up her fists and burying in her mind and chasing away reality just a tiny, little bit but it is _not enough._ So she drops to the ground, collapsing against its cold, solid reality bonelessly and buries her face on her knees.

 _They are not coming back._

The bitter taste of alcohol still burns in her throat like a dull ache that will never fade.

* * *

"Mac."

Fitz' voice is quiet, but calm. So different, so familiar. There was a time when his voice was shaky and stumbling, accompanied by a painfully slow and broken thought process that hurt him just by watching because he knew there was a brilliant mind caught in the achingly lost man in front of him. Fitz, to Mac's mind, is one of these people whose pictures you find in the dictionary, under the heading of _hero_.

"You should get some sleep."

Instead of looking up and answering, he downs the contents of the drink in front of him. He hasn't counted the glasses, and he doesn't care. Not tonight.

Fitz doesn't press, just pulls out a chair and sits down.

Leans back. Stares at the wall with a tired face and devastated eyes, and for a second Mac wants to comfort him and then thinks _who cares._

Fitz says nothing.

The silence grows and grows and grows until it is unbearable, until Mac, who never needed to talk, Mac who always was content just watching and listening, _Mac_ , who- Until Mac lifts his head to glare at the younger man and snaps: "What?"

Fitz shrugs. "Nothing."

Mac pours himself another glass with more force than necessary.

After Izzy and Idaho died, they went out: Bobbi, Hunter, Trip and he. They shared a bottle of whiskey, didn't talk much. Well, Bobbi, Trip and he didn't. Hunter talked the whole time, babbled nonsense, sprouted bullshit because that was what Hunter did. Always would do. Bobbi hadn't even tried to silence him.

Izzy is dead. Idaho is dead. Trip is dead.

Bobbi and Hunter never existed.

Of all of his best friends, Mac is the only one left.

Fitz shifts in his chair, his eyes tired and red. He looks like he is barely twenty, younger than ever. And still, in his eyes Mac can see all the things he has survived. It is a difference, he thinks, distantly, when things like that happen to people like him, Bobbi and Hunter, than when things like that happen to people like Fitz. People like Fitz should not experience all the cruelty of the world. _Ha._ Cruelty of the _world_ : the boy has literally gone beyond the world and has survived. Sometimes, Mac wonders whether he would have been able to do so; would have been able to keep looking despite all hope being lost, whether he would have managed to find a way and go it to the end in the same manner as Fitz had done it. _Despite everything._ And then he thinks it wouldn't matter, anyway: there is nobody for whom he would tear a hole into the universe. It is what sets him apart from Fitz and Gemma and Daisy, why he, Hunter and Bobbi were always different than the younger members of the team. They would rage, they would fight, they would argue and grieve. But they would, ultimately, accept the situation.

Which is what he is doing now: accepting.

 _They're not coming back._

(Maybe they've just been doing this too long. Maybe they're just too old and broken to still keep hoping. Maybe they're just beyond saving-)

"Fitz." Gemma's voice is laced with tears, and yet there are none on her face. She looks at Mac briefly, then, her gaze darts away again. "Sorry, but Fitz, could you-"

Fitz looks at Mac, visibly torn. Mac shrugs. "Go."

With a last glance backwards, Fitz leaves. His expression is mirrored in Gemma's eyes: pain, reluctance, apology. Then they're gone, never noticing how Gemma shifts a bit to accommodate for Fitz' shoulders when they walk through the door, how Fitz unconsciously matches the length of his steps to hers.

Mac downs the next glass, his thoughts already blurring but not blurry enough to forget. Sighing, he pours the next one, the burn of alcohol hollowing out the emptiness inside of him.

 _What are you doing, you idiot, wallowing in self-pity like a girl? These really girly ones, I mean, those who cry when their bloody finger nails break, who have those pink purses, like a particularly nasty shade of unicorn vomit…_

 _Shut up, Hunter._

 _Awww, he's getting feisty, how sweet!_

 _Move, Hunter. Pass me one, Mac._

 _What – why? Come on, you don't even like that stuff! Why are you indulging him? Children shouldn't be spoiled, otherwise…_

 _Shut. Up. Hunter. Just this time, okay?_

Mac feels the smile, bland and tiny, but there nonetheless. He toasts them in his mind.

 _Just this time._

* * *

She makes a collection of them. It is the only thing she has left.

Bobbi, fighting Ward in a flurry of blond hair, the clash of metal and the stinging scent of gun powder, when it should have been Melinda fighting him. Gemma, looking up to her, her eyes blazing in hero-worship for the blonde woman who has saved her when it should have been Melinda protecting her and helping her escape the HYDRA labs. Hunter telling Fitz stories about work in the field, when it should have been Melinda teaching him. Hunter, annoying everyone with stories about his cold-hearted ex who then proceeds to look at aforementioned ex as if she had hung the moon. Seriously, couldn't they keep their private life and their duties apart?

Bobbi, her blond hair matted with blood and sweat and gore and _he'll pay for that_ despite everything she looks fierce and strong and beautiful.

Hunter, beaten and bloody and cursing like a sailor, churning through ammo like a madman and _I don't love her anymore_ breathing chaos like Melinda breathes duty and self-deception.

They are so little like her. Still, sometimes, Melinda can see herself in them.

It's all that she is left with: memories.

She collects them all – looks at them, turns them around and around in her head. Marvels at them: how could she? Why did he? And she, the Cavalry, broken and twisted as she is and unable to feel: how could they make her feel again? It's the same with all of them: she never asked for these feelings. They are painful, and terrifying. But they're also very, very real. Coulson has her unfailing loyalty, Fitz and Simmons and Daisy are like the children she never had. Bobbi, Hunter and Mac… She regards them as her siblings, annoying as hell but _important_. Cherished. _Beloved._ And yes, Hunter annoyed her on a regular basis, and maybe she still cannot forgive his decisions, still cannot understand his reasoning. And yes, Bobbi did follow Gonzalez and betray Coulson, but Melinda has never held it against her. Maybe because they are similar, the Mockingbird and the Cavalry: strong, lost, fiercely loyal. To a fault, always to a fault. There are no absolutes, no black-and-whites, not like Bobbi and Melinda live them. But that is why there are people like Coulson and Andrew and Hunter and Mac and Simmons, Fitz and Daisy: they counteract. They anchor them.

Take away the edge that would make them heartless killers and make them _human_ instead _._

Melinda collects all the memories of weeks and months and years of a _team_. She burns them into her memory and then –

Then the Cavalry forgets them all.

A part of the Cavalry, however, the part that is Melinda May, a part that never will be shown to anyone, will always and forever carry them with her.

* * *

One of the few things Leo can still remember from those horrible moments before the glass of the containment module cracked and the water rushed in is Gemma's face: her eyes, full of tears and denial.

She always cried so easily.

A sad story, a weepy movie, world politics – there would be tears in her eyes, unerringly, and she would try to hide it but he always saw it right away.

(Sometimes, he wonders: does he see the grief in her face, or does he feel the pain in her heart?)

Now, there are tears in her voice and in her whole, rigid body posture. It's clear as crystal, nothing could be more obvious. But: she does not cry. And the most surprising thing is that it does not surprise him at all. Gemma Simmons will always be the woman he has loved since he turned seventeen and found himself sitting on the floor of his messy room after a whole night without sleep but with discussion topics ranging from string theory to SHIELD politics and he looked up and realized how utterly, entirely _captivating_ she was. She will always be the one and only person he loves – but the fact that that won't change doesn't mean that _she_ won't change. And whatever will happen, it won't change Leo's feelings for her.

So no, no surprise there.

She looks like she wants to cry, and she feels like crying. But she doesn't.

It's why he loves her.

"Fitz…"

Her voice trails away. She came to ask him something, he knows, but he also knows how hard it is. How impossible it feels.

"Good night, Gemma."

He smiles, turns to leave, but she stops him.

"No, Fitz. Wait."

And she doesn't need to say anything, he can see it in her eyes: how much she misses Bobbi already now, and Hunter, and how much she hates that this is what they do, that all of them are ready to give up everything they have worked for in order to save exactly this: the team, their work. _The world needs us._ How much she hates the fact that he has done what he did in order to save her, and that she would do the same. How each and every one of them would take the fall for the others, no matter the cost: because there is always a cost, _always._ The two of them know exactly how high the price is.

"Stay with me?"

He closes his eyes, three, four, five heartbeats, eternity. Her hand in his is warm.

"Okay."

Gemma's bunk smells like her, like soap and laundry detergent and organic solvents. Her form is small and familiar in his arms, she clings to him like she is afraid of letting go and he definitely is.

"Promise me."

"What?"

"Promise me you won't die for me."

"I'm not going to lie, Gemma."

Finally, the tears come.

"I miss them too," Fitz whispers into the darkness, into her hair, holds her tighter and feels her hands fist in his shirt.

She only cries harder.

* * *

He packs their things, as promised.

Bobbi's things.

Spare clothes, functional, simple. She has tops and sweaters and trousers, some things never used, some worn and weary. In the deepest recesses of the cabinet, hidden underneath a winter coat and something that looks like an old, oddly too-small karate gi, he finds a dress: dark-blue, shimmering, the material soft under his touch. Carefully wrapped in silk paper, it whispers of memories and lost things and the stubborn refusal to remember – and, at the same time, being unable to let go. Phil Coulson knows all those things, so he carefully puts it into the duffle bag and doesn't think of it anymore.

Bobbi has little other stuff: some make-up and a few books (he doesn't look at the titles) and a picture frame, hidden away underneath the other knick-knacks in her nightstand. He doubts she needs the tissues or the ibuprofen, but the frame he takes out of the drawer and adds it to the dress. One book has a sticky-note on it: _Thanks! Daisy._ On the dresser, there is a ring. Plain, silver, simple. No inscription.

Phil packs everything.

Hunter's things.

He doubts Hunter owed even one single suit: there are jeans and t-shirts and uniform gear, more of the latter than the first. He does own an impressive collection of knives and guns, though, though Phil is pretty sure weapons are not allowed outside the weapon's room (actually, he _knows_ , he _made_ the rules, after all). He actually is in possession of a razor, as well, something Phil distinctly remembers was the subject of a bet between Daisy and Simmons once.

Hunter's room is so empty it almost makes him think everything is packed, already, or has never been unpacked. But there are clothes neatly folded in the wardrobe (who would have thought), some toiletries in the bathroom and some random objects in the drawer. Other than that, Phil finds close to nothing personal. Sometimes it is strange, he thinks, what he does not know about his subordinates even though he has checked their backgrounds, stalked them outright, hired them and worked with them for months. The only thing that comes close to anything personal in Hunter's stuff is the plain silver wedding band that is tucked away in the furthest corner of the chest of drawers, in a small bag without any inscription. And a hair tie in the bathroom, equally plain.

Phil packs everything.

And then, just like that, the rooms are empty.

Just like his life will be emptier, now, two small places in his heart that have been left without replacement. Not that he wants to replace them. While Phil knows, rationally, that agents come and go, there always will be a part of him remembering those they lost. It is, he likes to think, the one thing that differentiates his SHIELD from Fury's SHIELD.

So he switches off the light and slides the doors shut, and knows nobody is going to be assigned to these bunks for quite some time.

"Boss?"

Mac calls out to him as he passes the tech labs, the sound of humming machinery a steady background noise.

"Do you know where the shipment of ammo is that arrived yesterday?"

"I don't know," he replies, his mind elsewhere. "Ask Hunter."

Mac nods and draws back with an odd look, and Phil only realizes what he has said when he's halfway to his office.

This, he thinks with a sigh, will take some adjustment. In his head, he can hear Hunter laughing, and Bobbi smirks.

* * *

Gemma thinks she is slowly getting used to her world being torn apart and put together again, and again, and _again_ , and each time something else that was irreplaceable is lost irretrievably.

She doesn't want to cry.

She is tired of it, really, hates herself for her weakness. One should think months spent in a different world would have cured her from that. But it is the other way round: the tears come more easily these days, like they are ever-present. Just waiting for one of the tears in her to crack open a tiny little bit.

It is like she bleeds tears instead of blood.

And besides, it's so much easier to be weak. So much easier to just avoid the trouble, to pretend not to see the danger. To withdraw into her lab and busy herself with analysis and research, where she can do her own work and help in her own way but never get in touch with the actual reality of the events. It's so much easier than living on a planet on which everything wants to kill you, or working behind the enemy's lines as a spy, or going out into the streets as an agent. It's so much safer – no, it's not. Her lab is not her one safe place anymore, hasn't been in a long time.

And she's not the naïve, silly Gemma Simmons she was when she first joined the team.

Still, the lab is where she belongs, like Daisy and May belong into the field and Mac belongs into the hangar where the scent of oil and machinery surrounds him, like Coulson belongs into the office with the large desk and Fitz belongs into the lab, at the table right next to her.

Like Bobbi and Hunter belong with _them_. Only now, they don't belong anymore.

And oh, she misses them.

She misses Bobbi. She misses Hunter. She misses Trip. She misses Skye. She misses Grant. She misses Dr. Garner. She misses Coulson and May and Fitz: she misses the ones they were before the world shattered around them and everything came down. The ones they were _before:_ before Hydra, before Grant's betrayal, before the Inhumans, before the portal. And, most of all, she misses herself: the old Gemma Simmons that knew so much and yet nothing, who could see a silver lining on every horizon and who detested even the sight of a weapon. The Gemma Simmons who was happy in her own little world, with her best friend working with her and equally good friends by her side, and who knew nothing of traitors, killers, other worlds, monstrous, flesh-eating organisms and heart-break and pain.

But that Gemma Simmons would never have gotten to know Barbara Morse and Lance Hunter. That Gemma would never have seen how wonderful, courageous and strong Leo Fitz is. That Gemma would not have seen Daisy being born from Skye, would not have worked with Melinda May and have realized the depth of the feelings the woman who is code-named the Cavalry hides away behind her carefully constructed façade. That Gemma would never have come to know Phil Coulson, and see the reason and the devotion in his actions. That Gemma would never have laughed at Hunter's jokes, would never have trained with Bobbi and watched and smiled and thought that, somehow, maybe, _they're perfect for each other, aren't they, Fitz?_

And Fitz is there and _so close_ and so many other people aren't, and _Bobbi and Hunter are not coming back._

But Fitz is there-

 _At least I will always have him_ , she thinks, numbly.

And hates herself for it.

It is just another one of many lies she tells herself daily.

* * *

"Or Colombia. Actually, I think Colombia's a splendid idea. Hot sun and a lot of beaches. The ocean. You know what? I think we should move there. Bugger those bloody Overwatch guys, they can observe us on the beach, drinking cocktails, and turn green with envy when they see that beach bod of mine…"

Hunter makes her laugh.

It's always been that way, even when they were fighting tooth and claw, even when they weren't talking anymore because the words were lost, even when he hated her, even when she resented him. When they weren't together. When they are. Lance Hunter looks at her with that small, secret smile that reminds her of so many things, and Barbara Morse, call-sign Mockingbird, one of the best agents SHIELD has – _had_ – along with Black Widow and The Cavalry, feels like smiling. Or laughing out loud. Or crying, really. He has an endearing way of self-deprecation that is not dark enough to be cynicism and not light enough to be humor, and by far not innocent. Granted, he drives her insane on days that end on he also saves her from herself.

It is more than she could ever have asked for.

They are staying in a small, surprisingly neat B&B at a roadside, three days after Russia. They don't even know the name of the next village. (That is a lie, they both know, but they both pretend not to just for the sake of it.) Everything they possess fits into the three bags that make the trunk of their rental car seem suspiciously empty. Hunter's two guns are stowed away under the spare wheel. Bobby's staves are easier to hide and besides, it's not like she would let them out of her sight voluntarily. They had dinner in a small diner, and then went out for a drink because none of them could bear going back to the small, alien room that is so little like what they knew and so little like _home_.

 _A Spy's Goodbye_.

Daisy, Mac, Fitzsimmons, May; even Coulson had come. Silently, they toast Bobbi and Hunter, each one with more words in their gazes than they will ever be able to say to each other. And Bobbi watches Hunter's crooked smile and silent toast, the unshed tears in Gemma's eyes, May's piercing gaze, Fitz and Daisy's wordless goodbye, Coulson's and Mac's nod of understanding. She watches them, and thinks _This is our team._ And then: _We will never be a part of it again._ Sometimes she wishes she could cry as easily as Gemma can; but that is not who she is. So the unsaid words and feelings build up in her throat and choke her and Barbara Morse, for the first time since she can remember, wants to lay down and curl up and sleep and never wake up again.

The night is warm.

They walk back to their room, Hunter chatting idly. Their shadow keeps to the shadows, knowing they know about him and yet dutifully obeying his orders. The B&B is silent, asleep. The key pad blinks and the door opens with a soft _beep_. The room is dark. Bobbi doesn't bother switching on the light, or even undressing. She just drops onto the bed, silently, and Hunter knows her well enough to close the door softly and not say a word.

It is the sudden absence of sound that breaks her.

It will be the two of them from hereon, just them. Nobody else. Nobody will ever be able to understand what they have lost. In a way this ties them to each other more strongly, more permanently than even their wedding vows had tied them, they will never be able to separate themselves from the other again and isn't it ironic that SHIELD, who separated them in the first place, now ties them together irretrievably by casting them out? Did she have to lose her mission and her determination and her bloody _family_ just so she could finally be with Hunter? Because she loves him, she always did, and she knows he always loved her, as well. But sometimes, their love for each other had hurt each other, had rubbed them raw and bloody. It was why they had separated again, why she had left when the pain and the shouting and the veiled glances became too much. And then they suddenly were thrown together again and everything she never had said had been cutting her open from the inside once again. Her heart beat to his name: _Hunter, Hunter, Hunter._ A painful love, a desperate one, but one she had clung to because _Hunter was it for her._ Bobbi can throw herself in front of every enemy she can find, she can go down fighting and come up again bloody and bruised and broken, she can take a bullet for him and watch him sleep with other women and maybe even him fall out of love with her. But she cannot stop loving him any less than she could rip out her own heart and continue living.

Why couldn't they have both? The team and each other? How can she continue loving him like that when she knows what it has cost them? How can she even allow him to look at her the way he does when she knows what they lost-

But she does. She always will. And it _hurts_.

It hurts in a way that leaves her no option but to fold herself into a ball, draw her knees up to her chest and wrap her arms around herself. She's not falling apart – she's strong, she knows that, she has survived so much pain and anger and resentment and betrayal and loss and she will forever pick herself up again and continue on, bruised, battered and broken. But the pain will always be there. Everything she has ever stood for, ever believed in – all the people she has come to love, all those who _died_ for what they all fought for – and here she is, and she is _nothing_ anymore. No agent, no member of SHIELD.

The Mockingjay is dead.

Hunter accused her of cold-heartedness before, repeatedly, and yes. She never cried. Barbara Morse watched her marriage fall apart without shedding a tear. She has raged and screamed at him, traded sarcastic and hurtful insults, accused him, mocked him. But she never cried. Now, the tears are far away, as well. Her eyes are dry and burn; she can feel the absence physically and painfully. But she does not cry. She just curls up on the bed, tries to make herself as small as possible and lies there in the dark, staring into emptiness. Thinks of nothing, because remembering what she had and what she lost is too painful to–

"Bob?"

Hunter whispers her name, and it sounds like a plea. It often did, in the past, when they tried to salvage what was left of their marriage. When he told her to hang on and not to leave him after she took the bullet for him. Her name drops from his lips softly, such a contrast to all the times he shouted it at her, or said it in that particularly sarcastic tone he reserved for her, and for her only. Now it sounds soft, pleading: almost reverent. But he makes no move to touch her.

He's the only one she has left.

There had been a time when she would have done anything not to be near to him during moments like these. Times when even _seeing_ him had hurt, had made her feel as if her heart was being torn out slowly, piece by agonizing piece. She had never wanted to fall in love with him but the fall had been hard, and fast. And it had been over almost as fast. Up, down, laughter, anger – Hunter made her feel _everything_ , myriad times stronger than she ever would have wished for, and she had never known whether to love him for it or to hate him. But she cannot deny that he has always been a part of her. That she has loved him, despite their differences, despite the distance and anger and time and pain. That she has always loved him, always will. She knew before – the Russians just brought it out into the open more clearly than she would have liked – and now, there is no turning back.

She's on her own. It's only her and Hunter–

Hunter, who loves her. Hunter, wo rather would have died than given up SHIELD. Hunter, who pledged himself to the same organization and the same people she had, who, finally, had stood in the same place as her and had understood. And when had it begun? When had he come to share her ideals, her devotion, her love for the people she worked with? When has it begun that she allowed herself to love him so much again that her heart is breaking with it?

She hasn't lost _everything_. She still has him.

A dry sob escapes her throat as she scrambles to fall into him, her arms going around his neck, her body curling into his. He takes her in easily, despite their awkward position. Wraps his arms around her, draws her close, folds her against himself with the ease of familiarity and _something more_ and in his whole body, in the way his arms tighten around her and his lips touch her hair and his breath hitches just a tiny bit she can feel how much he loves her.

"Hey," he whispers. "Bobbi. Bob. It's okay."

The tears come as a surprise to both of them, unchecked; in great, ugly bursts of sobs and tears and heaving breath. She buries her face in his chest and weeps all over his shirt until she can't breathe and can't see and falls apart completely, and Lance just holds her.

"It's going to be fine. We're going to be alright, love. I promise."

It's embarrassing, really. He probably has never seen her so out of her usual self.

But she almost died in his arms–

So she cries like she never has before, like she will never be able to stop. Sometimes she screams, wordlessly, her hands tightening in his shirt to a degree that must be painful but he just holds her. She'll smile again tomorrow, for sure she will. But today her entire body is screaming out in a pain that can only be expressed in the tears running down her face, like all the scarred wounds and the aching loneliness and the suppressed pain from her entire life demand to be felt in this instant. Bobbi cries and cries and cries and cries until there is nothing left, until she is empty and exhausted and spent, and even then sobs still wrack her until her breath calms somewhat and she is able to hear more than the sound of her own screams and the blood rushing in her ears.

Lance is talking.

His voice is soothing and calm and _familiar_ and he's probably been blabbering on like that for some time now, so now Bobbi starts listening, too exhausted to do anything else, her chest still heaving with exhaustion and her fingers cramped and hurting from holding on to him. But she doesn't let go.

"You know, it is kinda boring without Coulson and May on our backs, demanding to prepare for the next mission. We've had way too much free time today. Only shows how little bloody free time we had on the bloody bus, doesn't it? I can't even remember our last holiday. Was it in Bagdad? Kongo? Whatever, I can't just sit around all this time, even though there ought to be some TV shows I always wanted to watch. Nah. What do you think, should we go on a romantic midnight stroll? I'm sure there are still a few poor, dutiful leeches out there who're dying for a little action. Can't have been entertaining, these past days, just following two disgraced soldiers like us around like love-sick puppies. We could take some hot tea for them, invite them in. Must be freezing, too. Don't know about you, but I find that a little fresh air and some action always help me sleep better afterwards."

Her mind is a mess, a mix of all the things that happened, all the things they have lost, all the choices they have to make. She barely registers what he's saying, but one thing resonates clearly in the front of it.

He called her _love_.

The strange thing: she knows he _means_ it. She knows that every term of endearment that leaves his lips is as honest and as true as any single one of the angry curses he spat at her before, when he didn't trust her. When, she wonders, when did he start trusting her in the first place? Because he never did before, not even when she was telling him the truth, only the truth and nothing but the truth.

"When… when did you start trusting me?"

"Bob," he says, looking at her with a pained expression, "I ask you whether you'd like some post-dinner action, and you go and start with all the psychological, potentially argument-laden and heart-breaking stuff we've been through so many times already?"

"Lance." She looks at him and can see the subterfuge drain from him, can see him tense and relax and tense again and give in.

He drops his head to touch it to hers. Their bodies are entwined so tightly she can't say where she begins and he ends, and, for all she cares, they could be one entity and remain that way forever.

"You trust me."

She does. She tells him. There is nothing left for them to hide. "With my life."

"You wouldn't talk, not even to save me."

It hurts, that he still- "No." So they come back to this, don't they? Forever and ever, it will always be this point that will end everything they have, that will forever stand between them. Bobbi's too tired to feel angry, to stop him from speaking the words that will separate them again.

"You trusted me to do the same."

She closes her eyes, nods minutely. If this is the end written in his face, she doesn't want to see it. She's seen it too often; mirrored in his eyes, in the defeated drop of his shoulders, in the way he wouldn't look at her. _Here we are._ Somehow, they never make it past this crucial moment even though she wishes, with everything that she has, that they would. Somehow. Just… _Somehow_. She doesn't even care how anymore.

But that is the way they are, isn't it?

"Bob." He kisses her eye lids, feather-soft, and she can't help but lean into him despite her heart shutting itself in in anticipation of the pain. " _You_ trust _me_. How can I not trust _you_ , then? It's kind of a moot point, or so I'm told."

 _Here we are- Wait, what?!_

She jerks her head back, bashes in his nose in the process. Hunter swears. "Bloody hell, Bob!"

" _You've been told_?" She echoes, incredulously. "By whom?"

He rubs his nose sheepishly. "Always the important stuff first, huh? Here I am, assuring you of my eternal love and trust, and you want to know who told me I was a dickhead. Dunno. Daisy, I guess. Could have been May."

" _May_!? This is not a matter to be joking about, Hunter, I swear-"

"Bob," he interrupts her. "Is that even the issue here?"

She glares at him. "For years all you'd believe was the time I'd give you, and even that only on fifty percent of the time…"

"Well." He has the grace to look defiant. "It's not like you trusted me with much more than that."

"Are we going to discuss this _again_?"

"That's exactly my point! I trust you, Bob, I should have much earlier, but I do. I honestly do. I only learn the hard way, but I _do_ learn from my mistakes. I won't repeat them. I swear. And it's not only because we're not SHIELD anymore, and there is nothing about them you cannot tell me now. It's because you're _you_. You're Barbara Morse, kick-ass agent, SHIELD's ex-Mockingjay, and I love you. So I trust you. Tell me whatever you want, and hide the rest. It's fine. Just - let's just stay together, okay? Because it's not worth it, walking away again. I can't do it another time. _I can't lose you again._ Okay?"

Oh, this stupid, _insufferable–_

She closes her eyes, swallows the tears she thought she didn't have anymore. Feels his body pressed against hers, completely aligned, his heartbeat in resonance with hers. They're so close their breath is mingling and she needs him so much she can't breathe. If he left then and there she would survive, pick herself up and continue on as she has done many times before. But this time, she would lose herself; something of her heart would forever be missing. She cannot imagine being without him ever again. And he _loves_ _her_ – loves her completely, the way she is, with all her faults and her quirks and her troubles and her forced secrecy and her arrogance that hides her fear. He loves her enough to trust her, and the knowledge is overwhelming.

Deep, deep down, she always knew.

 _Okay_ , Bobbi thinks. If it's with him, she doesn't care where she's going. She doesn't care what will happen, and where they'll be. _Okay._ SHIELD has been her life for so long she might have forgotten how to live differently. But together, they'll figure it out. She knows both of them refuse to remain passive when an alien race is about to attack earth, SHIELD or Not-SHIELD. The Team is still their family, and just because they can't be with them anymore doesn't mean they can't do anything to help them. They'll just… They'll just have to go deeper than the shadows that hide Coulson's organization, have to be even more unofficial and secretive than SHIELD itself. They'll find a way to help Coulson, May, Mac, Daisy and Fitzsimmons from where they are right now. _We won't give up,_ she thinks and kisses Hunter, kisses him until her breath is lost and his heart races along with hers and his hands are buried in her hair. _We'll be okay._ His touch burns through her, his closeness intoxicating in a way it always was and never before, and Barbara Morse thinks _As long as we are together._

And: _Lance Hunter, I love you._

When they break apart, both of them gasping for air, she asks: "How is your Spanish?"


End file.
